


And Baby Makes Fourteen

by SuperfriendlyFox



Series: Pig in a Blanket on the Bed [6]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Humor, Kid Fic, Light Angst, Mild Sexual Content, Pregnancy, SuperCorp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-06 18:43:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14063106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperfriendlyFox/pseuds/SuperfriendlyFox
Summary: Because their family just isn't big enough.





	1. Twinkle in Their Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawn/gifts).



“It’s not too late to make a run for it.”

Lena slides her arms around Kara’s waist, softly kissing the back of her neck. “I’ll buy the hotel. We’ll live happily ever after—” she kisses Kara’s cheek “—making love morning and night—” she nips at her earlobe “—taking the occasional break for room service, of course.”

A bird tweets its approval of this plan from the huge oak tree in their front yard. Kara giggles—at least Lena assumes that’s the sound she’s making, drowned out as it is now by thunderous barking, and by five sets of claws pawing frantically at the front door.

The purple door.

Lena briefly takes her eyes off her beautiful wife to gaze forlornly at their freshly painted house. Black with purple trim was not what she was envisioning when they took the kids along to the paint store. But, that’s the price you pay when you have children.

When you fall in love with them.

“I don’t think Winn and James will appreciate being stuck with our munchkins forever.” Kara turns her head and gives Lena a smooch before facing the purpleness and fitting the key into the lock.

“I mean . . . they can share custody with Alex and Maggie?” Lena makes a last ditch attempt before Kara unlocks the door and pushes it open, to the lovely harmonies of the Beach Boys—

_Wouldn't it be nice if we were older?  
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long . . ._

—and to the decidedly unlovely farting of their overexcited mutt Punkie, as he leaps on Kara, perhaps having feared them gone for good.

He’s followed by their labrador mix Rover, sheepdog Comet, and the pit bulls Wally and Petunia. _Thank God we only have_ one _dog with flatulence issues,_ Lena thinks as she kneels to accept slobbery kisses. “Did you miss us, babies?” She scratches behind Charlotte’s ears as the pig grunts with pleasure. Minerva, their tortoiseshell cat, rubs against her shin as the tuxedo, Alfred, launches himself onto her shoulders.

Kara grins and gathers Alfred into her arms as she and Lena straighten, the Beach Boys once more crooning to them—

_Wouldn't it be nice if we were older?  
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long . . ._

“Won’t it be nice when the kids are older—when they’re _in college_ —and we can have sex on the kitchen island in broad daylight again?” Lena giggles, placing her hand on the small of Kara’s back as she follows her inside.

“Mmm, you’re giving me ideas.” Kara strokes Alfred’s back as he arches into her palm. “Like how it’s been a while since we sent them to Alex and Maggie’s for a sleepover.”

“Mrs. Luthor-Danvers, I’m shocked,” Lena teases. “Shocked and _scandalized._ We’re no sooner home from date night and you’re already planning when next you’ll ravage me.”

“You’ve caught me, that’s all I think about.” Kara laughs in her melodic way, and they kiss again, once, twice, three times . . . finally noticing that line playing over and over again—

_Wouldn't it be nice if we were older?  
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long . . ._

Giving each other quizzical looks, they follow the tune into the dining room—the dog pack and Charlotte racing ahead of them, Minerva weaving in and out of Lena’s legs.

James and Winn hold Jack and Betty in their laps at the table, watching a video on Lena’s laptop of a green and yellow parrot strutting joyfully in a circle, over and over again.

Lena pales and grips Kara’s hand.

Kara clears her throat.

Winn flips the laptop closed, finally cutting off the song, as James, Jack and Betty whirl their heads around.

James checks his watch. “You’re early. Was there something wrong with the hotel?”

Lena just stares at her laptop. _The hotel I’m going to buy? And run off to with Kara?_

Kara opens her arms to let Alfred spring back onto the floor, places her hands on her hips, and summons her Supergirliest voice. “What is going on here?”

 _“Nothing?_ Nothing at all,” Winn squeaks.

Lena smacks her purse down on the table, making no one jump except Kara. “Winslow. James. You know the kids aren’t allowed to watch animal videos unsupervised.”

James raises an eyebrow. “Unsupervised? What are Winn and I? Chopped liver?”

No one beats Lena at the eyebrow game. _No one._ She raises one of her own and stares him down. “That _is_ what you’ll resemble if we ever catch you breaking the babysitting rules again.”

Jack jumps up and rushes to hug Lena.

“Oof! Super-strength, Jackie honey.”

“Malcolm and his sister got a cockatiel last month!”

“And _that_ is why we don’t let the kids watch animal videos without us.” Lena picks up Jack, tickles him, and carries her giggling son back to the table. She sits and nestles him on her lap. _Seven, going on eight. Soon he won’t let me hold him anymore._

Betty scrabbles off Winn’s knees and clamps herself around Kara’s shin. “And Margie got a baby sister. Can _I_ have a baby sister too? Please Mommy?”

Lena’s gaze falls to her soon-to-be-four-year-old, watching her and Kara’s conversation with great interest, as Kara tries to redirect Betty’s enthusiasm.

 _“Jack_ has a baby sister. You! And _you_ have a big brother! See? We’re a perfect family already, just as we are.”

Betty takes a deep breath, scrunches up her face, and lets loose the fearsome Howl of the Patronized Toddler. _“IIIII . . . waaaant . . . a sister!”_

Winn and James shoot up from their chairs, aware of the oncoming supersonic tantrum. “Later guys!” “Seeya soon, kiddos!”

They scurry off, Betty keeping her composure long enough to wave at their retreating forms, Kara and Jack calling goodbye, and Lena stroking her chin in contemplation.

The door shuts behind Winn and James, and Kara takes the opportunity to redirect the entire conversation as she picks up Betty—dodging Turtle who’s just crawled out from underneath a chair—and sits down with her at the table.

“So . . . a bird, huh?” Kara leans closer to Lena and whispers, _“Much_ easier than a third kid, right babe?”

Lena suppresses a smirk at her wife whispering when the kids have super-hearing, but their attention is focused on the hypothetical future pet bird. “I believe, Betty, that when I agreed to Petunia joining our already-overflowing family, you, Jackie and Mommy promised me no more pets, am I remembering correctly?”

“But then Minnie died,” Jack argues, as Betty bobs her little head up and down. “And you said we could get a new rat.”

“I _did_ say that, in a moment of weakness. But Mommy said no, she didn’t want another.” Lena raises both her eyebrows, the left pointed at the kids, the right at Kara, because she’s talented like that. “Because they don’t live very long, and I don’t think any of us want a repeat of last year too soon, do we?”

Jack supplies the information that macaws live thirty to fifty years, and Lena’s torn between pride at her son’s knowledge and curiosity, and a desire to ban James and Winn from babysitting forever. _Although, that will just make weekly date night that much more difficult to arrange . . ._

“I think a thirty to fifty year commitment is a bit much for you both to tackle, at your age.”

“Pigeons live fifteen!” says Betty, helpfully. “Mummy, you can bring one home next bees nest trip to New York!”

 _“Business,_ baby.” Kara can’t help smiling as she waits to see how Lena will talk them out of this one.

“There are signs _all over_ New York City not to feed the pigeons.” Lena chuckles. “I can just see the TSA agents at JFK freaking out if I show up with a pigeon in my carry-on.”

Betty’s eyes well up with tears. “Why won’t they let you feed the pigeons?”

“Sweetheart. I just meant . . . pigeons have very specific nutritional requirements. The city wants to make sure people don’t feed them junk food.”

“Ohhh.” Betty breathes easier, used to Lena’s strict rules on eating sweets and snacks.

“Mommy can fly to New York and bring one home! Like right now!” Jack hops up and down on Lena’s lap with excitement. “New Yorkers have so many, they won’t even miss it!”

“We can go with her!” Betty claps her hands with glee as she lifts a meter into the air, and Jack rises up to match her.

“I really don’t think we should bring home a pigeon.” Kara corrals Betty as Lena reins in Jack.

But the kids don’t give up. “But Mommy—” “Mummy said we could have a rat so it’s only fair we get a bird—”

“All right.” Lena sighs, as if in defeat. “We can get a bird.”

Jack and Betty’s little faces light up, while Kara’s eyes grow wide with surprise.

 _“But—”_ Lena’s eyes glint wickedly as she looks down at Jack then over at Betty then back again “—to make room in our household for the bird, you’ll have to pick one of your other pets to give away.”

 _“Give away?”_ Betty’s wee eyes grow as wide as her mom’s fully grown ones. Her lower lip trembles while Jack, stunned, stares at each of the animals in turn, as if he might never see them again.

Lena tries to keep a straight face as she continues. “I suppose Charlotte would be the obvious choice, as she’s been with us the longest. It’s long past time to trade her in.”

 _“Trade her in?”_ Betty can’t hold back anymore and bursts into tears.

Kara tries to comfort her while giving Lena the side-eye. Jack jumps off Lena’s lap, picks up Charlotte, and flies off with her to his room, possibly intending to hide her under the piles of comic books in his closet.

Lena sighs once more. _Am I the only one in this family with a sense of humor?_

*

They kiss Jack goodnight. (“Kiss Rover too, Mommy. Mummy.”) Lena turns off his light and they move on to Betty’s room, checking in on her and Comet one more time before heading to their bedroom.

Lena touches the small of Kara’s back and makes her way once again to Jack’s room. She opens the cracked door a few inches farther to glare at the bed, a large lump and the faint beam of a flashlight visible under the covers. Rover gazes innocently at her from his spot on the pillow.

“Fifteen minutes, and then it’s lights out,” Lena warns. “Understood?”

“Yes Mummy,” comes Jack’s muffled voice, as Rover barks in acknowledgment.

Lena can’t help but grin as she cracks the door once more.

*

“Darling, I’ve been thinking,” she says as they settle down in bed, arranging their limbs around Punkie, Wally and Petunia. Charlotte lies near their feet, already snoring, Minerva waits till Lena’s head hits the pillow before wrapping her poofy body around her, and Alfred slinks somewhere under the bureau, searching for spiders to shoo.

“Yeah, babe?” Kara wiggles into Lena’s chest. She waits for Lena to wrap her arm around her belly before laying her own arm gently over it.

Lena takes a deep breath. “I think I would like another.”

“Sure.” Kara wriggles out of Lena’s hold, just far enough to grab another pillow from the edge of the bed and hand it over.

Lena grins, accepting the unneeded pillow and sticking it by the headboard. She sighs with pleasure as Kara once more snuggles into her arms.

“I mean . . . I think I would like to have another child.”

Kara guffaws. “Yeah, right. I can’t believe the kids fell for you wanting to give Charlotte away. She’s got you wrapped around her chinny chin chin, that one.”

“Kara.”

“Okay yeah, I fell for it too. You did give her away last time,” Kara grumbles, apparently still not totally over it.

 _“Kara.”_ Lena squeezes gently. “I mean it.”

Kara slowly turns around, Lena loosening her hold again to let her. Kara searches Lena’s face for signs she’s kidding. “Lena, I . . . when Minnie died and you offered to get us another rat, I was shocked. And then when you had us adopt Minerva in honor of Harry Potter, I thought you’d been body swapped with a cat-loving alien. I almost went down to the bar to search for the real you.”

Lena’s gaze falls as her lips pull into a smile. “I don’t blame you for being surprised, sweetheart.”

“I mean, it’s already a lot of work, two kids, and . . . ” Kara counts on her fingers. “Eight pets.”

Lena can’t help but laugh as she looks back up at her adorable wife. “Nine.”

Kara narrows her eyes in confusion, starts counting on her fingers again—

“You’re forgetting Turtle, possibly.”

“Turtle!” Kara smacks her palm to her forehead. “How could I forget Turtle?” She props herself up on the bed just enough to make sure Turtle’s sleeping in his cage in the corner of the room.

Lena shakes her head, sitting up now and pulling Kara into her. “I need to build him those roller skates I’ve been promising.”

Kara reaches up to softly stroke Lena’s hair. “You know we could just explain to Betty how lots of kids don’t even have one sibling, and that she’s lucky to have Jack.”

“It’s not just for Betty, Kara. I . . . I did enjoy carrying her and Jack. And I loved when they were babies. Yes, it was a lot. But I loved it. Even though I complained much of the time—” she rests her forehead lightly on Kara’s at the memory “—I missed it when it was over.”

Kara smiles and places her fingertips on Lena’s belly. “I miss you being all big and round.”

“You miss me looking like a bowling ball?”

“A very sexy bowling ball.” Kara tilts her head back up and kisses her.

Lena smiles into the kiss, before pulling away slightly. “I know it will mean another five or so years of weekly date nights. We won’t be having sex on the kitchen island for a long time yet.”

“Oooh,” Kara groans. “I don’t know, babe. Is a third child really worth it?”

Lena laughs as she gently runs her knuckles down Kara’s cheek. “I want this time to really cherish it, knowing it’ll be the last time. When we had Betty I was sort of expecting you to push for another. I think I would have been more in the moment if I’d known she’d be our last.”

“Oh Lena.” Kara cups Lena’s face and kisses her again. “I didn’t know you wanted another. You were a bit, um . . . _stressed_ back then.”

Lena’s gaze falls again. “Yeah, I did have a bit of a meltdown, didn’t I. I’m sorry for that.”

“No.” Kara shakes her head emphatically. “It was a lot and I wasn’t sensitive enough to your needs.”

“It’ll be better this time,” Lena promises, sure of herself, and of them.

“The best.” Kara wraps Lena up in her arms. “I love you so much.”

She holds her for a long moment, before pulling back just enough so they can kiss, again and again, as Minerva patiently waits for Lena to lay her head down again.

*

They have a family meeting in the morning, over chocolate chips with pancakes in them.

Lena and Kara warn Betty they won’t be able to guarantee her a sister, that she might receive a baby brother instead. Betty is surprisingly accommodating— “If he’s a boy, he can still come to my tea parties” —and starts to plan updated seating arrangements for said tea parties. Jack is over the moon at the prospect of having another tiny sibling to impart with all his knowledge—most likely thinking of all the fun he had pitching Betty into the air when Lena wasn’t looking.

“Are you _sure_ you guys want another sibling?” Kara searches her children’s faces for any misgivings. “You know you’re going to have to share _everything_ with him or her. Even me and Mummy.”

“Miss Baugh says sharing is caring,” says Betty, and Jack nods in assent.

“Ah, the marvelous Miss Baugh.” Lena chuckles, thinking of that time a few years ago when Jack’s class went on a field trip to the zoo and Jack got just a little overexcited. Lena had taken the morning off from L-Corp, and turned around from helping Charlie Hagglebottom pull gum off the bottom of his sneaker—and then also the back of his neck (“Just, _how,_ Charles?”)—just in time to see Jack launch himself several feet in the air. Miss Baugh had grabbed his ankles and pretended to hold him aloft for a better view of the otters.

Of course all the other kids had clamored for a turn, and Miss Baugh got quite the workout.

“Otterly fascinating, aren’t they?” she’d asked the class.

When Lena had tried to talk to her about the incident later, and offer to pay for her physical therapy bills, Miss Baugh just waved her off. “Please, Mrs. Luthor-Danvers. Your son isn’t the first alien to grace my classroom, and he certainly won’t be the last. He’s a sweet and thoughtful boy, pays attention to the lessons, and adds immensely to the positive and accepting environment I try to foster. That’s really all I care about.”

Lena and Kara had been overjoyed when Betty wound up in Miss Baugh’s class this year.

And Kara had gone along on the trip to the zoo, just in case.

*

“Maybe, let’s not tell Grandma yet?” Lena suggests, as she drives Jack and Betty, in the van they’d painted as a family to look like the Mystery Machine, on their weekly trip to Hard Time Hotel. “We’ll have lots of time to tell her once the baby’s actually inside me, all right?”

Jack and Betty nod in their car seats, and Lena breathes a little easier, as she needs more time to prepare herself for advising her mom about their plans. She ponders this the entire remainder of the ride.

They’re let in the small visiting room, and—

“We’re getting a sister!” Betty screeches as she waddles up to Lillian and throws her arms around her leg.

And squeezes.

Lillian winces—her beloved granddaughter still doesn’t know her own strength—and Jack barrels into her middle a moment later, remembering at the last instant to be gentle, narrowly avoiding overturning the table where her hands are chained.

“A sister?” Lillian beams at her grandchildren, then gives Lena a suspicious look. “Are you adopting?”

Lena glares at her mother. _“No,_ we are not.” _Tempting, though._ She waits what she feels is an appropriate amount of time before peeling her children away from Grandmonster. “Kara and I have decided to try for a third.”

“Thank heavens,” whispers Lillian, relieved her future grandchild will at least carry _some_ non-alien, Luthor blood.

Lena sits, settling the kids on her lap, one on each thigh, facing this structure of flesh and bone that is her personal Hell on Earth. She gets an evil but enjoyable thought, and a wicked gleam in her eye. _That’s not a good reason to adopt,_ she tells herself. _But there’s no harm in having a little fun, is there?_

“Actually, mother, Kara and I were discussing just the other day the high rates of orphaned and abandoned children amongst the alien population. We were thinking what we might do to help alleviate the problem.”

Lillian’s lip curls at the horror of this implication. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” Lena coolly returns Lillian’s hard glare. “I don’t think Jack and Betty would take kindly to you not loving _any_ brother or sister of theirs.”

Betty looks up from playing with Lena’s watch, confusion on her face and her lower lip a-wobble. “Why wouldn’t you love our brother or sister, Granma?”

“My darlings.” Lillian reaches her hands out as far as her chains will allow, and Lena can’t help making a sour face as both her children instantly squirm out of her arms to connect with their grandmother.

“You could have a dozen brothers and sisters, with blue skin and three mammary glands apiece, and I would love them just the same. Because they belonged to _you.”_

Lena pulls her lips into a thin line at her mother’s slick political answer, Jack beams, and Betty bangs her and Lillian’s fists on the table in delight, as Lillian bites her lip in pain.

Looking at her cheery children, Lena begrudgingly admits to herself her mom does in fact have some good qualities.

_Maybe just the one._

Then Jack asks, “What are mammary glands?”

And Betty turns to Lena. “Can we Mummy? _Can_ we get a dozen brothers and sisters?”

“Yeah!” Jack chimes in. “Please, Mummy?”

Lena’s heart sinks at the possibility of having to offer her kids a bird after all, and Lillian smirks, eyeing her daughter in yet another victory.

On the drive home from Shawshank, Lena realizes, _I_ am _pretty good at this mum thing. And Kara . . . she’s just the best. At_ everything, _absolutely everything . . ._ She sighs, thinking of all the things her wife is the best at, then quickly refocuses when her nether regions start to tingle, so she doesn’t get them all into an accident. _And there_ are _a lot of orphaned alien children, even just in National City . . ._

She wonders if they’ll have to postpone the daytime kitchen island sex a good number of years yet.

*

Their previous sperm donor is unavailable due to being in a new, committed relationship, so for the first time Lena and Kara sift through piles of papers, combing through the backgrounds and medical histories of complete and total strangers willing to anonymously sire their child— “Our third little superhero,” Kara jokes.

“Over my dead body.” Lena sighs as she throws another of Kara’s picks onto the reject pile. Minor-league baseball players, bodybuilders, marathon runners . . . basically anyone who shows a predilection for exercise is out in her book. She’d rather have a sickly, scrawny shut-in who’ll _live_ than another kid she’ll have to worry about having to stick in the ground.

Kara’s not surprised to find Lena’s choices heavily weighted toward mathematicians, physicists, and an actual rocket scientist.

“Our third kid will most likely inherit my cell structure also.” Kara tosses Lena’s picks back onto the coffee table. “All you’re doing is increasing our chances of bringing another Bruce Banner into the world.”

Lena takes off her glasses and sets them on the pile of papers. She holds out her hands, and waits till Kara places hers in them. She caresses them with her thumbs.

“Sweetheart, you and I could never make a Bruce Banner. Jackie’s never raised his voice to _anyone._ And while it's true Betty has the occasional tantrum . . . ” Lena smiles at a memory. “Last week she showed me how to trap a spider under a drinking glass and free it outside. Darling, you and I—we’ve done a great job, it turns out.”

Kara’s smile threatens to take over her whole face. “I always knew you’d make a great mom.”

“I was afraid in the beginning I’d mess the kids up somehow. I’m not actually sure how they turned out so wonderfully.”

“I have a pretty good idea.” Kara leans forward and nuzzles her nose against Lena’s.

Lena sighs, having never been fully truthful about this. “Kara, every time I see the kids flying around the house I get this awful fright the DEO will recruit them and I’ll never see them alive again. I just want _one_ kid where the most I’ll reasonably have to worry about is them ruining their eyesight staring through a microscope.”

“We could use _your_ eggs this time.” Kara squeezes Lena’s hands gently. “That way for sure the kid won’t get superpowers—except for super _brainy_ powers.” She giggles.

Lena grins, then places Kara’s hands over her own belly. “No, darling, let’s go with yours again. I love knowing I’m carrying a part of you inside me.”

Kara moves one of her hands up to Lena’s heart, and places the other over her own. “You _always_ carry the biggest part of me inside you, my love.”

“Oh?” Lena’s lip quirks up. “I thought the biggest part of you was your bottomless stomach.”

“That’s my _second_ biggest part.” Kara tickles Lena and doesn’t let up until her wife falls onto the couch and begs her to stop. Then she turns back to the coffee table and picks up a sheet from Lena’s pile, sliding it out from underneath Lena’s glasses.

“It’s not _every_ mother who can claim to have a budding rocket scientist, huh?” She reads further down the form. “And look, Lena! He plays the drums!”

 _“What?”_ Lena shoots up from the couch. “How did I miss that?” She grabs the sheet from Kara and searches for the special skills and hobbies section.

“Not . . . not that we would ever buy our kid a drum set,” Kara adds hastily. “I mean, maybe a xylophone, or a set of chimes, or—”

At the look on Lena’s face, Kara gulps.

“Two words, babe. _Rocket scientist.”_

*

The weekend is spent just generally lazing around the house, until Kara gets called to the DEO. Lena tries to take her mind off worrying by—what else—working.

This month’s project is a jetpack prototype that fits over a person’s pelvis. She’d gotten the idea while staring at Jack reading _Captain Underpants_ and realizing a personal jet propulsion device might work better when fitted over a person’s center of gravity, instead of over the shoulders.

After working for a couple hours she decides she’ll think better if she allows her brain a short rest, so she closes her laptop and climbs the stairs, Charlotte and Minerva—always ready for a good nap—trailing behind her.

Lena checks in on Betty as she passes her daughter’s room, then abruptly halts and reverses her steps, almost stepping on Minerva before the cat jumps aside. No, she was not hallucinating—Betty and Jack actually _are_ sitting at opposite ends of the room, rolling Turtle in the mini-skates Lena had built yesterday back and forth between them.

“Betty, Jackie . . . ”

The kids look up at her right as Jack releases Turtle, and Turtle seems to make eye contact with her—asking for help?—as he rolls on by.

“I don’t think that’s quite so good for Turtle, in all honesty.”

“But Mummy, he _likes_ it.”

Lena scratches her head in doubt, then steps into the room and crouches next to Turtle. She runs her finger gently under his chin. He bobs his head up and down . . . demanding more rides perhaps?

“Well, all right. He does seem to be enjoying it.” She rises and heads for the door. “But only ten more minutes. We don’t want Turtle to get dizzy.”

Twenty minutes later Lena gets up from her nap, pleased with what her subconscious has come up with regarding the jetpack, less pleased with the dream of going to work in her underpants. She heads back out into the hall, Charlotte and Minerva hot on her heels. Once more she pauses on her way past Betty’s room, glad to see the children have obeyed her for once. Turtle rests, sans skates, on the floor, his head and feet tucked in his shell for a nap of his own.

There’s a flutter in her peripheral vision and she looks up to see Jack and Betty flying in a circle, inches from the ceiling.

“Now!” calls Jack, and he and Betty dive bomb Turtle, touching down on either side of his shell and immediately blasting off again toward the ceiling, Betty giggling all the while.

“No giggling on patrol,” Jack commands, but stifles a laugh of his own.

Lena groans and steps into the room, crossing her arms over her chest. She can’t really complain as she’s forbidden the kids from using their powers outside, lest someone see them. So she does understand their need to let loose inside the house, but . . . _patrol?_

“Hi Mummy!” Jack calls. “We’re practicing for when Mommy needs our help to fight crime!”

Lena turns a ghastly shade of white. Were it Halloween she’d have the perfect costume. _“Never._ Never will I allow you two to put yourselves in harm’s way. At least, not till you’re eighteen, by which time I will have died of worry, so you can do what you like.”

Trembling at the mental images her imagination is conjuring up, Kara correcting her on the children’s last wishes— _“Babe. The kids would want to be buried next to Minnie and Harry Potter”_ —she turns and leaves the room, only to bump into her beloved in the hallway.

“I’m so sorry, Lena,” Kara says in a doleful voice, overly concerned, Lena thinks, over a soft bump in the thigh.

“No, I’m sorry, love.” Lena gives her a peck on the cheek. “I had my mind somewhere else and I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“No . . . _Lena.”_ Kara takes her hand and leads her to their bedroom, Minerva barely slithering inside before Kara shuts the door. Charlotte grunts her displeasure at being left out in the hallway, and Kara opens the door to let her in before closing it again.

 _“Ooh.”_ Color returns to Lena’s cheeks. “Are we having a mid-afternoon quickie?” She excitedly moves to switch on the red sun lamps in the hallway and lock the door, but Kara stops her.

“I mean, we _can_ . . . later? If you want to? I . . . just wanted to tell you how sorry I am, though, right now.”

Lena’s eyebrows raise in bewilderment. “Sweetheart . . . what in the world do you have to be sorry about?”

Kara brings her to the bed. They sit and she traces a pattern on Lena’s knee, some intricate design she keeps staring at, rather than look Lena in the eye.

“I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry we met, that I made you fall in love with me. Otherwise you’d be with someone else, someone human, with totally human kids, who all you’d most likely have to worry about is them ruining their eyesight by staring into microscopes, like you said.” She tries to laugh but it comes out as a strained gurgle, and she traces Lena’s knee in the opposite direction.

Lena can’t believe what she’s hearing. _“Kara.”_ She cups her wife’s face and looks into her teary eyes. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about. I thank God every day that we met—” she kisses the tear that’s just escaped “—I fell in love with you all on my own—” she kisses the side of Kara’s other eye to match “—because you are the most wonderful, lovely person I have ever met—” she rubs her thumb over the track of the tear “—and I love you and Jack and Betty to death.” She winces. “Poor choice of words."

She leans her forehead against Kara’s, savoring the feel of her. “I wouldn’t trade any of you for anything, and I would choose this life with you and the children all over again, no matter how many lifetimes I had the chance to make a different one.”

Minerva hops onto the bed and finagles her way between them, making Lena laugh. “Yes, you too, my little poofball.”

Charlotte squeals and nudges Lena’s shin.

“As if I could ever forget _you,_ Charlotte, my darling.”

Kara bends down and scratches the top of Charlotte’s head before popping back up again. “I know you worry about them, Lena. I know you worry about _me.”_

“Of course I do.” Lena gently takes her wife’s hands, and once more leans their foreheads together. “But it worries me more that you don’t understand how blissfully happy I am with you, how I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“It’s just—”

“Not a one.” Lena shakes her head slowly, gently, moving their heads as one.

Kara flashes her gorgeous grin. “Not even one of our eight—I mean, _nine_ pets?”

Lena pretends to think about that a moment, prompting Kara to laugh, and to tickle her.

“So . . . about that quickie?”

*

Other than getting their sperm from a bank this time around, much of the rest of the conception process is exactly the same. Kara’s eggs are retrieved, fertilized with the sperm of rocket scientist-drummer boy, and observed. Two viable embryos are then chosen and transferred into Lena’s uterus. Kara holds Lena’s hand and whispers sweet somethings in her ear during the procedure, and they watch on the ultrasound monitor as Dr. Superbabymaker (not his real name) places the embryos.

“I love you,” Lena says, a tear running down her cheek.

Kara gently squeezes Lena’s hand and kisses the tear away. “I love _you.”_

“Why are we doing this again?”

“Because our family just isn’t big enough.” Kara smirks, and Lena can’t help but dissolve into giggles.

Two weeks later Dr. Superbabymaker—whom Lena has rechristened Dr. Rocketscientistmaker—calls to deliver the good news. The first cycle has been a success—a first for them—and their baby is on its way, with a due date and everything. They take the call in their bedroom, the children suspiciously quiet somewhere in the house, and afterward they lock the door and turn on the red sun lamps to celebrate.

Many kisses later, they emerge from the bedroom, hand-in-hand—

—just in time to see Turtle zoom by.

Down the hall past them.

Headed for the staircase.

“Kara!” Lena screams.

Kara’s on it, super-speeding to the edge of the stairs. She grabs Turtle right before he pitches over the side. She straightens and turns, glaring at the pack of dogs cowering at the end of the hallway. “Okay, which one of you is responsible for this?”

Punkie lets out a fart, Rover hides his face behind Wally’s butt, and if that wasn’t evidence enough, Comet subtly pokes his paw in Rover’s direction.

Kara gently places Turtle on the floor, after moving their old child gate in front of the stairs. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt Turtle, guys, but this is dangerous.”

Lena strides down the hall to Jack’s door and yanks it open.

She blinks into the empty room, then takes the few steps to Betty’s open door, where Kara joins her.

“Jack James Winslow Luthor-Danvers.” Lena glares at her son, who's sitting in the midst of Betty’s tea party, helping Charlotte out of her Victorian-era gown. “Did you put the roller skates on Turtle, then leave him unsupervised?”

Jack looks up at his parents as he pulls a lacy sleeve off Charlotte’s hoof. “Me and Charlotte were just coming out, Mummy.”

“Charlotte and I,” Kara corrects—

“Not the time, sweetheart.” Lena rubs Kara’s arm soothingly. “Jack. You know you have to put the pet gate in front of the staircase _before_ you put Turtle’s skates on, and you must watch him at all times, we discussed this.”

Jack removes Charlotte’s bonnet. “I’m sorry, Mummy.”

“Sometime’s sorry’s just not enough, do you understand?” Lena places her hands on her hips. “Turtle could have gotten seriously hurt. You know better than this Jackie, I’m very disappointed in you. I’m going to take the skates away if you can’t be responsible for your pets. Turtle’s not a toy.”

Jack nods his head, swiping the back of his hand at his eyes.

Kara takes Lena’s arm. “That’s enough, babe,” she whispers. "I don't think he'll forget again."

Lena sighs at the thin line between reinforcing the gravity of a situation and making her son cry. She comes and kneels down by Jack, squeezing in to make room for herself at the crowded tea party. Dolls, stuffed animals, real animals . . . She cups Jack’s face. “Look at me, Jackie,” she says softly. “I know you didn’t mean to, sweetheart. Just, please be more careful, all right?”

Jack nods again and Lena puts her arms around him. She strokes his hair as he burrows into her shoulder.

Charlotte grunts and roots in Jack’s side until he can’t help but giggle.

“Jack, why don’t you take Turtle downstairs and let him have fun on the race track Mummy built?” Kara suggests.

“The race track with motion-activated air jets for safe steering and deceleration," Lena emphasizes, turning her head to glare at her back-stabbing wife.

“Yeah.” Kara laughs. “I’m sure Rover would love to give Turtle another push. And Punkie, too, and—”

“Comet, that snitch.” Lena can’t help but laugh now, as she rubs Jack’s back softly, and squeezes him once more before letting go. She straightens as her son and their newly naked pig shuffle out the door.

Acting as if such disruptions are perfectly normal for an afternoon tea party, Betty hands a new cup of tea to Minerva in her frock and bonnet, and then one to Alfred, who naturally sports a tux so is always prepared for tea parties.

Kara steps further into the room and pulls Lena into her arms.

Lena chuckles as she snuggles into Kara’s comforting embrace. “Remind me why we thought having another kid was such a great idea?”

“You’re afraid you’ll get bored once we no longer have a rabble running around.” Kara giggles and kisses Lena’s cheek. She checks to make sure their daughter’s engrossed in her tea party before adding, “Betty asked me the other day if we could have a _dozen_ more kids, like Grandma suggested, apparently.”

Lena scowls. “One of these days I’m going to put a hit on Grandma.”


	2. Bowling Balls Need Love Too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some sadness, their baby is not coming without complications. It’s very minor but I wanted to mention it. Tags have been updated.

 

Now that safety concerns have been readdressed, Lena finds she’s glad to no longer see Turtle lagging behind his brothers and sisters, temporarily forgotten, desperately trying to catch up until someone remembers and backpedals to pick him up.

With sticky hands, or jaws dripping with saliva.

A new pregnancy brings some changes to the Luthor-Danvers household. Punkie, Wally and Petunia are banished to Kara’s side of the bed, so they won’t accidentally kick Lena in the stomach while dreaming of chasing after  ~~the mail carrier~~  uptight Mrs. Hagglebottom.

Normally Lena enjoys having Kara as her own personal electric blanket. They keep the bedroom window open to offset her body heat during the warmer months of the year, only sometimes needing to train a fan on Lena’s side of the bed. Now with Lena’s elevated body temperature they turn on the air conditioner they haven’t used in four years and keep it running constantly.

And Lena definitely enjoys using her pregnancy as an excuse to pass on to Kara and the kids her litter box cleaning shifts. Kara had thought Lena was pulling her leg the first time she mentioned it, all those years ago while she was pregnant with Jack.

“Toxoplasma gondii,” Lena had patiently explained. “This particular parasite, found in feline waste, is especially dangerous to expectant mothers and their fetuses.”

Kara had scoffed. “You just don’t like cleaning up after Alfred and Harry Potter.”

“Are you suggesting I agreed to having a child so I could get out of cleaning the litter box for nine months?”

“I’m saying it’s a definite possibility.”

“Mmm. Shut up and kiss me.”

Each time Lena’s been pregnant they’ve chosen to find out the gender of the baby, but this is the first time they’ve actually had a preference. Although Betty had insisted she would be fine with a baby brother, they know her little heart is set on having a sister, and Lena, especially, doesn’t want to chance having a repeat of the baby sister discussion a few years hence.

Which is why they head home from Lena’s sonogram in high spirits, stopping on the way to go into all sorts of shops, buying pink helium balloons, pink streamers, pink lemonade, strawberry ice cream, pink jelly beans, pink wafers, cupcakes with pink frosting—okay, not _too_ many sorts of shops.

Jack gets it right away, flying up and over the streamers strung all around the living room and kitchen, gently bopping balloons out of his path. Betty stares at the foodstuffs— “Mummy is today a holiday?” —as aside from birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, there’s never been this much sugar assembled on their dining room table all at once.

Unless Lena’s out of town, and Kara’s in charge.

“We’re having a sister, Superstupid!” Jack whoops and tackles Betty to the ground.

“Jack! What have we told you about calling your sister that?” Kara says sternly, hands on her hips.

But Betty just laughs and gets back on her feet, hopping up and down now, making the house shake. “We can name her after Granma!”

Lena pulls a face. “I’d really rather not.”

Kara chortles, and Jack says, “What about Nana?”

“Your sister was named after Nana. Elizabeth Catherine Luthor-Danvers. Betty for short.”

Jack’s face registers his confusion. “I thought _Eliza_ is short for Elizabeth.”

“They both are.”

“Oh. Can we name the baby Eliza?”

Kara and Lena exchange smiles. “How about Elle?” suggests Kara.

Lena’s eyes light up. “Or Ella? I’ve always loved Ella Fitzgerald.” She turns to the kids. “I’ve played you her records, remember?” She starts to sing— _“I get a kick out of you . . . ”_ —patting her belly, where the baby will soon be kicking.

Jack jumps onto a chair, then immediately launches himself off. “We can call her Bella! It means beautiful in Italian.”

Lena turns to Kara. “Did you take the kids flying again?”

“Just real quick to Venice and back?” Kara bites her bottom lip. “I’m sorry, I _did_ lie about where I got the chocolate biscotti.”

Lena buries her face in her hands. _I knew that was divine biscotti._

“The shop man called Mommy _bella.”_ Betty giggles. “And me _belly-somo.”_

Kara beams. “Bella’s a beautiful name, isn’t it?”

Lena lets her hands fall back to her sides as she scrunches up her nose. “Honey? I _really_ don’t want to be thinking about _Twilight_ every moment of every day for the rest of my life.”

“Bella!” Betty squeals and claps her hands. “My baby sister Bella!”

“Ella sounds almost exactly like Bella,” says Lena in desperation.

“Let’s do Ella!” Jack enthuses, and Lena’s relieved he’s switched to her side—

_“Ella Ella Bo Bella Bonana Fanna Fo Fella Fee Fi Mo Mella . . . El-la!”_

—till she realizes he’s just singing Shirley Ellis’s “The Name Game.”

“We can call her Jelly Belly!” yells Betty, dancing around, until Jack grabs her around the waist and they lift off toward the ceiling.

Kara joins them in the air in celebration, and Lena looks down at her baby bump, wondering if it’s not too late to stop all this and get a pigeon after all.

Eventually a compromise is reached, and they decide to name the baby Ella Isabella Luthor-Danvers.

It sounds more rhythmic in that order, Lena insists. “And we _will_ call her Ella,” she tells the kids sternly, certain they’ll obey her, like they always do.

 _Lena,_ at least, plans to call the baby Ella, Isabella when she’s bad.

She hopes the kid won’t grow up damaged.

*

Lena sits on the couch going over L-Corp reports, listening to the squeals of pleasure flying through the window from the backyard. Whatever her wife and children are doing, it’s tuckered out Punkie, Wally and Petunia, who slunk back into the house fifteen minutes ago and now rest their heads on her bowling ball of a belly, while Minerva crouches on the back of the couch and nibbles at Lena’s hair.

A dull _thud!_ resounds from somewhere upstairs, and Lena takes her eyes off her sheaf of papers, mentally calculating the identity of the culprit. She can hear Rover and Comet barking outside, Charlotte’s joyful squeals mix with Kara’s and the kids’, and she’d seen Turtle skating by just a few moments ago.

“Alfred! What are you doing? Do I need to come up there?”

Lena deliberates getting up, but honestly it hadn’t sounded like anything glass or porcelain had hit the floor, just something heavy.

Although . . . could Alfred be lying trapped under something?

 _Dammit. Why again did I agree to becoming an unpaid zookeeper?_ She makes to get up from the couch, disturbing the three furry snouts on her tummy, and gingerly pulls a strand of her hair out of Minerva’s jaws.

Paws skitter down the hallway upstairs.

Lena leans into the couch back again, relieved. Punkie farts, then settles himself onto Lena once more, followed by Wally and Petunia. Minerva resumes her snacking.

Which lasts all of two minutes.

“Dammit,” Lena mutters. “Sorry, guys.” She leans forward to throw her papers onto the coffee table, waiting till the dogs shift away and Minerva releases her, before pushing herself off the couch and making her way to the bathroom to pee for the forty-seventh time that day.

Once she returns and settles down again it’s not too much longer before Charlotte, Rover and Comet burst through the doggie door. The back door opens and Kara and the kids troop inside. Everyone converges on the couch—after Jack’s slid _Kung Fu Panda 7_ into the DVD player and Kara’s brought in refreshments—and Lena gives up on her work and tosses it to the floor, as there’s no longer any space on the coffee table free of drinks and yum-yums.

The dogs abandon Lena’s tummy to better position themselves to sneak cookies, and Kara sets a small bowl of cucumber slices, carrot sticks, and pickles on Lena’s belly, adding a scoop of mango ice cream. Lena’s about to reach for the spoon when she feels a familiar something.

 _“Guys._ The baby’s kicking.”

More squeals, and suddenly her food’s gone, and there are hands and paws all over her baby bump. Alfred comes racing down the stairs to see what all the fuss is about, and Turtle rolls in from the kitchen.

“Can you feel her?”

“Bella! She’s kicking!” Betty bounces on the couch with excitement.

Jack furrows his brow as he taps a rhythmic pattern onto Lena’s tummy.

“What are you doing, Jackie honey?”

“Morse Code. I’m telling Bella we love her.”

Lena bites her bottom lip to try and keep it together. She’s doing fine until Kara sniffles, then she breaks into a blubbery mess.

Betty looks up at Lena with alarm, wrapping her arms around Lena's neck. “What’s wrong, Mummy? Don’t you like Moss Code?”

Lena slides her arm around Betty and hugs her closer. “Everything is wonderful, sweetheart. My body just likes to cry nowadays for no reason.”

That weekend Kara decides to modify date night, and cancels their regular hotel reservation, much to the dismay of the staff, who love Lena’s generous tipping. They send the kids to Alex and Maggie’s for the night as usual. The kids are always stoked to see Gertrude and their cousins, Gertrude and the cousins are over the moon to see them, and Maggie and Alex get to add months’ worth of gray to their hair in just one night.

Alex dutifully comes to pick up the kids. After lots of hugs and kisses and goodbye waves as the SUV rolls out of the driveway—goodbye to the kids for the night, and goodbye to more of that reddish-brown hair—Kara herds the animals into the living room, while Lena slides _The Secret Life of Pets_ into the DVD player.

“Any particular plans?” Lena smirks, shucking her sweatpants and underwear, but keeping her socks on because that darn floor’s _cold._

“Oh . . . um . . . maybe!” Kara giggles as she picks up a squealing Lena and heads with her to the kitchen. She _super_ briefly uses her heat vision to warm up the kitchen island before gently depositing Lena onto the marble slab.

“Pregnant kitchen island sex!”

Lena wiggles out of her t-shirt and bra, then out of instinct starts to lie down in her usual (non-food preparing) position on the island. She quickly thinks better of it. “Our past kitchen island sex positions won’t work with my belly, sweetheart.”

Kara thinks a moment. “Modified kitchen island sex!”

She pulls Lena closer to her so she’s sitting right on the edge of the island, and slots herself in between Lena’s thighs. There’s kissing, then more kissing as Kara moves her attention to Lena’s breasts, and finally she sinks closer to the floor to kiss in between Lena’s legs.

Lena moans as Kara goes to work, reveling in the feel of it, and in Kara’s skill. Suddenly she laughs—

Kara looks up at her, a twinkle in her eye. “Do you find this amusing, Mrs. Luthor-Danvers?”

Lena’s laughter subsides as she comes back to the here and now—a here and now where Kara’s lips and tongue aren’t where she needs them. “Not at all, Mrs. Luthor-Danvers.”

“You were laughing just now.”

Lena feels her cheeks flush. “I was just remembering a few months ago when I almost drove the van into a tree, like that scene in _Parenthood.”_

“Oh? Did you have a special someone in the passenger seat?”

“I was fantasizing about a special someone, yes. Wishing she was there.”

“Well, she’s here now.” Kara raises herself to her full height once more to softly kiss Lena’s lips. Pulling away slightly, she’s about to engage her wife in more witty banter, when she breaks off, looking down at her hands cradling Lena’s round tummy.

“The baby’s kicking again.”

Kara leans over slightly to press her ear to Lena’s belly. “Now that we’ve established Bella’s fluent in Morse Code, we can communicate effectively with her.” She removes her ear to face The Bump. _“Bella._ Hi! Good thing you’re in there so you won’t have to see the dirty, filthy things I’m about to do to your mummy.”

“Dirty, filthy, blessedly wonderful things,” Lena breathes.

“You do know it’s because of you that we won’t get to do these things whenever we want for another five years, don’t you, Bella?”

“She says stop calling her Bella, her name is _Ella.”_

“You need a Morse Code refresher, babe. She says we had better get all our jollies now, because when she gets here she’s not going to let us out of her sight for a second.”

“Well then, you had better get on with it and give me my jollies, hadn’t you?”

Kara grins, kisses Ella through Lena’s belly, then straightens to kiss and caress Lena’s breasts again.

“Heyyy . . . you know what we could do to maybe spice things up a bit— _not that I’m saying our sex life needs any spice or anything, haha_ —but since we’re in the kitchen anyway?”

Leaving her spot between Lena’s legs—amid protests—Kara moves to the refrigerator. She roots around inside a moment till she spies what she’s looking for, and pulls out a can of whipped cream. Turning to Lena, she wiggles her eyebrows suggestively as she slams the fridge door.

“Ooh,” Lena teases. “Kinky.”

“Whatever, Morticia.”

 _“Me?_ I didn’t hear you trying to dissuade the kids at the paint store, Gomez.”

“You’re not really that unhappy about our black and purple house, are you?”

“I suppose I can wait to repaint till the kids go to college. But you’d better make it worth my while, Mrs. Luthor- _Danvers.”_

Kara pulls off the cap of the whipped cream with her teeth, then spits it out onto the floor. “Oh, I intend to, Mrs. _Luthor_ -Danvers.” She sprays a dollop of whipped cream onto each of Lena’s nipples.

After an hour and fifteen minutes of somewhat messy fun, including a _super_ quick cleanup, they enter the living room hand-in-hand just in time to view one of the final scenes in _The Secret Life of Pets._

The little girl on the scooter spots Snowball, the leader of the Flushed Pets gang.

_“Mommy! Can I have a bunny? And a pig and a crocodile and a lizard?”_

Lena chuckles. “At least we only have a pig, and not a crocodile and a lizard, and—”

“Betty did ask me for a bunny when we passed the pet store on the way to get frozen yogurt the other day.”

“You _do_ like sex with me, don’t you Kara?”

They flop down onto the couch, the animals immediately re-forming around them like water, to watch the film end.

The humans come home at the end of the workday to all their various pets. As the huge muscled guy lovingly interacts with his parrot, Kara opens her mouth to say something—

Lena cuts her off. “A bird in the house is a harbinger of death.”

“Not if it’s your own bird.”

The kid smooches his goldfish through the bowl.

“Curious that they’ve never thought to ask for a goldfish.”

“Their sights are set higher. But I’m sure they someday will.”

And the old lady sinks into her easy chair, immediately adoringly set upon by her horde of cats.

Kara giggles. “That’ll be us someday.”

“Darling, that’s already us.” Lena snuggles closer to her wife and sighs contentedly. Because their life is good.

No, scratch that.

Their life is wonderful.

*

Six weeks before the baby is due, Lena spends her last day at L-Corp. From now on she’ll work from her laptop on the couch, take meetings via conference call from her home office, and only come in when absolutely necessary.

Jess knocks at Lena’s office door and Lena calls for her to enter.

“Everything’s taken care of, Mrs. Luthor-Danvers. And I arranged that very important meeting as your last of the day.”

Lena looks up at her assistant (the highest paid assistant in the world, given all her raises and bonuses and promotion refusals— _“I couldn’t trust anyone else to take care of you, Mrs. Luthor-Danvers”)._ Her mind draws a blank. “Forgive me, Jess. You do mean Mr. Song at four, yes?”

Jess bites back a grin. “No, that other important meeting. You know . . . the _thing?”_

 _“Oh.”_ Lena can’t hold back a grin of her own. “Yes. My _thing._ Thank you, Jess. How could I have forgotten the thing?”

After leaving L-Corp, she takes a nice stroll downtown, treating herself to a kale and spinach smoothie, and enters an exclusive parking garage. Once inside she flips a hidden switch, makes her way down a narrow corridor, submits to retina and fingerprint scans, and finally emerges onto a private parking deck.

A pristine Ferrari awaits her, reclining in front of her like a sleeping panther, its tinted windows unmarred by custom-made stick figure decals of their humongous family, its body a beautiful shade of black, quite similar to the black of their demon house but devoid of purple polka dots—or teal, or whatever Betty’s favorite color du jour currently is— _Turquoise? Dammit,_ _I_ am _a bad mother._

She opens the driver’s side door and slips into the leather seat. Shutting her eyes, she moans as she sinks into it, the Italian leather seat blessedly unsullied by jellied fingers, or gum that’s being “saved for later.”

She’s dying to floor it, to take her pre-married-life baby out for a spin that will leave them both dizzy, but she wouldn’t dare risk it. _I wouldn’t do anything to risk the life of my third little superher_ —dammit! _My little rocket scientist!_

She makes a mental note to have Jess schedule another _thing_ — a “business” trip to Germany the first week she’s back at work.

She and the Autobahn have a hot date.

She texts her driver to pick her up, in the steel gray town car with the pink racing stripe. “Magenta!” she exclaims in triumph. _I will_ never _be a bad mother,_ she thinks with relief.

The next day finds her standing in front of the calendar in the kitchen, marking off the days they have left to visit Lillian, X-ing out another Saturday.

“What are you doing, Mummy?” Jack enters to put his breakfast plate and fork in the sink, Betty and their dogs trailing behind him.

“Hmm?” Lena pulls her eyes away from the last couple Saturdays, both marked _Advantage - me,_ to train them on her son. “Grandma lives forty minutes away, so soon we won’t be able to visit her for quite some time. I don’t want to risk being that far from the hospital in case the baby decides to come early.”

“Bella will decide?” Betty stares up at Lena’s baby bump, in awe at her unborn sister’s ability to command the household from the inside.

Lena smirks. “Ella will indeed.”

Kara laughs as she enters with her and Betty’s plates and utensils, ready to shuttle them all to Lillian’s due to Lena refraining from driving just to be extra safe. Kara places the dishes in the sink and briefly runs water over them.

“She’ll be ruling our house for a while. Just like _you_ did, my little superher— _I mean,_ my little super helium balloon.” She shoots Lena a furtive glance, then picks up a giggling Betty and heads out the kitchen archway with her.

Lena herds Jack out as well, following behind Kara and Betty. “Speaking of which . . . did everybody go? It’s a long drive to Grandma’s, and those gas station bathrooms are not sanitary. Betty?”

“I went Mummy.”

A few head pats and ear scratches later, the family’s out the door, howls, grunting and barking heralding their departure to the neighbors.

Jack buckles Betty’s car seat for her, then flops down onto the leather cushion and reaches for the adult seat belt, glad to be eight and no longer having to ride in a child seat.

Kara helps Lena into the van, as with her belly she’s having trouble getting in by herself, then gallantly fastens Lena’s seat belt for her. They share a couple kisses, till Betty inquires gravely—

“Mummy did _you_ go?”

Kara and Lena exchange smiles.

“I did go, sweetheart, thank you for making sure.”

Kara gets in her side and buckles herself in. She puts the car in drive with her foot on the brake, then takes a quick look around, a wide smile on her face. “Well, are we all ready?”

Betty’s not ready. “Can’t Granma come visit _us?”_

Lena hesitates, not remembering what she told Jack when he asked her this question years ago. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Kara glance at her worriedly.

“Grandma is very, very busy.” She thinks another moment. “Laundry is a demanding profession.”

She bites her lower lip and checks the rearview mirror to see how Betty’s accepting this answer, relieved to see Jack, who knows exactly what’s up with Grandma, distract Betty by tickling her.

Inspired by the peals of laughter from the back seat, Kara puts the van in park, then leans over and tickles Lena, over and over again until she squeals for her to stop.

Kara removes her playful fingers, kisses Lena’s cheek, and soon they’re pulling out of the driveway, on their way to Grandma’s house—

“Darling?”

Kara looks over to see Lena biting her bottom lip again. “Yeah, babe?”

“I’m sorry. I did go, but . . . I need to go again. Tickling does that to me when I'm pregnant.”

“Me too,” pipes up Betty.

The Mystery Machine backs into the driveway, buckles are undone, and Kara helps Lena out while Jack assists Betty. Mum and daughter waddle hand-in-hand back to the house.

*

Kara grins at Jack. “Our girls, huh?”

Jack gives her an uncertain smile, then when Kara turns back to open the glove compartment and fiddle with something inside, undoes his own seat belt and bolts out the open door.

Kara looks through the rearview window, thinks a moment, then opens her door and follows her family up the walk, thinking better safe than sorry, as those gas station bathrooms are super unsanitary.

The front door opens, and the dogs bark with relief at their family having returned home again so soon.

*

Saturday rolls into Sunday which turns into Monday, and Lena remembers why she enjoys arguing with rude, misogynistic businessmen from the comfort of her home much more than at the office—Punkie, Rover, Comet, Wally and Petunia can growl surprisingly loudly when they want to. Lena moves the phone’s sensitive mic closer to their rumbling throats, enjoying the audible swallows coming from the speaker, the hesitation, the stammering, and the inevitable surrender. She ends each call with a grin, as well as a biscuit for each of her colleagues.

Later at the supermarket Lena decides to visit some old friends she’s missed terribly, Sherry, Rosé, and Chianti. Pushing the cart with Betty’s little legs sticking out of the seat, Lena sighs as they pass all those lovely colorful bottles calling out her name. She’s so looking forward to the precious bonding of breastfeeding, but she’d be lying if she said she doesn’t miss a nice glass of Shiraz or Chardonnay with dinner on date night.

She and the kids have moved on to the freshly baked loaves of bread, when Charlie Hagglebottom races down the aisle toward them, eager to interact with his friend Jack, acting like he hasn’t seen him in _ages._ Which he hasn’t, as school let out more than an hour ago.

With Jack preoccupied with Charlie, and Betty as well—Lena’s long suspected Betty harbors a crush on her brother’s friend—Lena takes the opportunity to discreetly place the Oreo Double Stuffs Jack had snuck inside the cart back on the shelf, wedging them between loaves of rye and pumpernickel. Normally Lena wouldn’t feel right causing extra work for the store staff, but she’s already had to tell Jack one carton of ice cream is more than enough (”But Mummy, they’re buy two get one free!”), and she just doesn’t have enough gas in the tank today to take part in the Great Oreo Debate.

“Charlie, you wanna stay over? You haven’t slept over in forever! Mummy? Mummy!”

“Hmm?” Lena jerks her hand away from the cookies, turning to her son with an oh-so-innocent look, but Jack’s too excited to notice.

“Can Charlie stay over tonight? Please?”

“Of course, Jackie. Charlie, you know you’re always welcome. Where did you leave your mom, I’m just going to confirm with her before we go.”

Charlie’s face falls. “Um . . . I can’t. I have . . . I have a thing.”

Lena raises her infamous eyebrow, as she knows a thing or two about _things. “Charles._ You haven’t been by in _months._ Did something happen?”

Charlie squirms, twisting his fists inside the pockets of his jeans. “Mom said I can’t come over anymore. Just . . . ” He looks down at his sneakers. “She doesn’t like your black and purple house for some reason.”

Lena’s eyes widen, and her heart sinks, then breaks at the look on her son’s face, his terrible realization that you can’t be yourself in this world without having to sacrifice some things.

Sometimes, some very important things.

“Let me talk to her anyway,” she says, forcing a hopeful look onto her face. “Maybe I can change her mind.” _Like hell am I going to repaint our god-awful ugly house and teach my kids to cave to bullies. But maybe . ._ . She’s thinking she can offer to pay to have the park refurbished, or take on extra PTA duties—hopefully not coinciding with _Mrs. Hagglebottom’s_ PTA duties, as she seriously needs a drink whenever she’s around that woman for more than a few minutes.

Her business brain can’t help roving toward more aggressive persuasion techniques—the mobster movie she and Kara watched last night comes to mind—but her _mom_ mind reminds her this is her son’s friend’s mother they’re talking about. Lena’s no Livia Soprano, and Mrs. Hagglebottom, despite her many, _many_ annoying qualities, doesn’t deserve to be fitted with a pair of cement galoshes and tossed into a lake.

But it’s a comforting thought.

Suddenly there’s a _whoosh!_ and it’s Lena’s crotch that feels like the bottom of a lake, and the children are staring at a puddle on the floor like the Loch Ness Monster has risen from its depths.

Lena wants to reassure the kids there’s nothing to worry about, but she knows there is—there’s _a lot_ to worry about with the baby coming so early, six weeks early—and even though her mouth hangs open, no sound comes out.

Betty does not have that problem.

She opens her little mouth, and Lena and Jack immediately snap their palms over their ears, as they know what’s coming.

But Charlie doesn’t. Betty’s never thrown a tantrum in his presence, because of her crush and all. But now her mummy needs her, and what her mummy needs is her—

_“Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Bella’s cominnnnnnnnnnnnnng!”_

Covering her ears is of little help. Lena thinks she’s gone deaf for a moment from the force of Betty’s wail, Jack’s sensitive hearing has also taken a hit, and Charlie’s hair stands on end. Lena resolves to pay for any hearing aids the Hagglebottoms’ insurance won’t cover.

Kara comes bustling down the store aisle, hair flying, glasses askew, buttoning up the top two buttons of her blouse.

“Just parked the car!” she says, a bit too loudly for the benefit of shoppers still staring at Lena and the kids, and the store manager who comes running with a mop and a Wet Floor sign to ward off potential lawsuits . . . from Mrs. Hagglebottom, probably.

Leaving Charlie and the cart behind—as well as, thankfully, the Double Stuffs—Kara guides her family out of the store and to the far, _far_ end of the massive parking lot, where the family van could conceivably be parked.

“Alex was with me when Betty called. She’ll meet us at the hospital. Traffic’s pretty terrible going into the city, though—I was thinking this might be a good time for our first flight as a family?”

Her hands at her blouse buttons, she searches Lena’s face, a hopeful look on her own.

Lena would rather do a thousand other unpleasant things than go flying while also seeing her children so high up off the ground, but this is no time to quibble over niceties such as scaring oneself to death. She shrugs in defeat. “Better than having our baby born in the back of the Mystery Machine.”

She’d flown with Kara before, of course, because Kara thought it’d be romantic and Lena—well, Lena would do anything to make Kara happy. Kara had always been careful, and chosen nights that weren’t too chilly, and wrapped Lena up in her cape once they got where they were going, usually atop some skyscraper or other, so they could stare up at the stars, and Kara could point out the ghostly glow of what used to be her home.

She’d known Kara had taken the children flying that one time. And then Jack accidentally let the cat out of the bag about that second time, when they’d all conspired to torture her with _Twilight._

But flying as a family is something else. Kara holding Lena in her arms, the kids flanking them.

“Don’t either of you dare let go of Mommy,” Lena warns them, knowing full well the kids can fly on their own, but not being able to handle actually seeing it in person this far up.

They fly slowly enough, but still much faster than the van could carry them, even with empty streets. Kara keeps sneaking Lena little kisses, on the top and back of her head, her neck, her cheek. Lena even manages to keep her eyes open part of the time, knowing someday they’ll reminisce about this as a family, and she wants to have an actual visual memory to go along with the audio of squawking birds and her own soft whimpers.

They alight behind a dumpster belonging to the hospital, and Kara quickly changes back into the civvies she’d flung inside her messenger bag—also containing things Lena needs for her stay—which Jack had gallantly carried on the way over.

“How you doing, babe?” Kara asks as she whisks her sprouting family inside the huge entrance doors.

Lena bites her lip through a contraction. “Tell me again why we didn’t just get a pigeon?”

Alex is waiting for them, ready to take the kids home with her. But Lena’s doctor decides to try to delay the delivery, and Lena is given tocolytics to slow down her contractions and an injection of corticosteroids to help the baby's lungs mature. Alex and the kids stay with Lena and Kara awhile, and when it’s time to go, Lena and Kara hug and kiss them, giving the kids assurances all will be well and they’ll see them tomorrow.

Maggie brings them back to the hospital to visit the next day, and Alex the day after that. Soon Lena’s contractions are coming fast, so once again she and Kara hug the kids goodbye, telling them when next they see them, their new sister will be here.

Now alone in Lena’s room, they hear Betty throwing a fit in the hallway, refusing to leave the hospital.

Kara gently squeezes Lena’s arm and goes out to help Alex reason (haha) with the four-year-old, and Lena reclines on the bed, practicing her breathing exercises. A few minutes later Kara brings a crying Betty inside the room and sets her by Lena’s side.

Lena sits up to put her arms around her. “Sweetheart, everything’s going to be fine, it’s just that I won’t be feeling too well for a while.” This only makes Betty cry harder. “An incredibly _brief_ while,” Lena lies, remembering how incredibly _not_ brief it was before Jack and Betty each deigned to leave the five star accommodations of her womb.

“Mommy and I feel it’s best that you and your brother not be here for that, all right?”

“I don’t want you to hurt,” Betty says in between sobs. “Can’t Bella stay in your tummy? Please Mummy?”

Lena wants to laugh, but doesn’t have the heart to when her little one is crying. “No, baby, El— _Bella_ needs to come out.” She cups Betty’s cheeks and gives each of them a kiss. “I won’t be hurting for long, I promise.”

“Why can’t I stay and help you feel better?” Betty clutches onto Lena’s wrists with trembling fingers, as Kara gently strokes her hair. “I want to.”

Lena feels her heart breaking, but takes care not to let it show, not wanting to upset Betty further. _“Sweetheart._ I’ll feel much better knowing you and Jack are okay at Aunt Alex’s. Okay? Promise me you’ll be Mummy’s big girl now.”

Betty sniffles, looking like she’s about to have another tantrum, but then bobs her head up and down. “I’m your big girl Mummy.”

Lena bites down on her lip to keep from bursting into tears herself. “I know you are, my love.”

Kara dabs at Betty’s eyes with a tissue, then moves it down to her nose. “Blow for me, baby.”

A few earsplitting snorts into the tissue later, and Alex enters the room to take a calmed Betty off their hands. Once they’re out of sight, Lena allows herself to cry.

*

She remembers the agonizing pain when she had Betty four years ago. And eight years ago, when Jack burst through her like a slow-motion cannonball. How she’d screamed.

She’s determined this time not to let it get the better of her, certain her little ones are listening in, despite the best efforts of Aunts Alex and Maggie, and Gertrude and the cousins, to distract them.

Her name may now be Lena Luthor-Danvers, but she’s still a Luthor, she’ll always be a Luthor, and Luthors are stronger than pain.

But even a Luthor eventually breaks.

*

On the outskirts of the city, Betty pauses in her reach toward the Monopoly money. Looking out the window, past the trees standing stoically between her and her beloved mother, she cries out, “Mummy’s hurting! So much!” And with nothing she can do to fix it, grabs the Monopoly bank and throws it into the air in sheer, teary frustration.

Jack stands, scattering the hotels crowded onto Park Place, picks Betty up and holds her tight to his chest.

Alex, Maggie and the cousins can only watch helplessly, while Gertrude pads over and nuzzles the back of Betty’s knee.

*

Lena cries out one final time, as Kara holds onto her hand and kisses her forehead.

“You did it, babe. She’s _here.”_

The baby’s here, and so very tiny. She’s swaddled in a blanket, a teeny beanie on her head, and Lena only gets to give her a kiss, and Kara too, before she’s whisked off to the neonatal intensive care unit.

Lena breaks down in tears, having looked forward to this moment for all these months, to get to hold her new baby in her arms. To cuddle with her, and smell her, and kiss her more than once.

The next time she gets to see the baby it’s morning. Ella looks like a miniature Bane, hooked up to a breathing apparatus and what seem like a million monitors and tubes, IV lines, and electrodes, the beeping of a cardiac monitor replacing the physical feel of the baby’s heart on her own.

Lena lets out a helpless whimper, Kara’s arms around her waist, and fits her hands inside the portholes of the isolette. She gently reaches for Ella’s tiny hands, softly rubs the wee fingers.

“It’s my fault,” she manages to say, in between sobs. “I wished for a frail child.”

“No.” Kara squeezes her a bit tighter, kissing Lena’s cheek. “It’s no one’s fault.”

“It is.” Lena sniffs in a long and raspy breath, not having a free hand to wipe away her tears.

“You didn’t mean it, and we knew the risk was higher with in-vitro, so hush.”

Her body trembling, Kara rubbing her sides soothingly, Lena thinks that with all their combined power—Kara’s superhuman strength, Lena’s degrees, their intelligence, her money—there’s absolutely nothing they can do for their new daughter, just watch and pray that she’ll make it through, and give thanks for the excellent care of the skilled and watchful staff.

As much as she never wants to let go, she wants Kara to have this experience, so Lena slowly removes her fingers.

The baby reaches for them.

*

They decide to collect Jack and Betty from Alex and Maggie's and bring them home to spend time with them. Once at their own house they open the front door, and just like when they came home with Jack and Betty, the pets are all waiting in a line to greet the baby.

Except there’s no baby.

Lena cries, and Kara holds her, and Betty cries, and Jack holds _her._ The pets wander among them, looking for the baby, sniffing for the baby, confused why there’s no baby. Finally, after rooting at Lena’s relatively flat stomach, Charlotte lies down on the floor and starts to blubber. Punkie mournfully rests his chin on her back, and Minerva licks at her head. Turtle crawls about, determined not to give up the search, Rover, Comet, Wally and Petunia form a melancholy choir, howling plaintively at the hidden moon, and Alfred paws frantically at the front door, as if he’s afraid they’ve left the baby outside by accident.

That night the kids insist on sleeping with them— “So we can all be sad together,” says Jack —and Lena has never been less inclined to argue. She holds Betty to her chest while Kara holds Jack, and the pets hold all of them, in their paws and in their hearts. Even Turtle forgoes his cage and crawls over to them, where Kara scoops him up and places him next to Charlotte for comfort.

In lieu of a bedtime story, Lena and Kara tell the kids all about their baby sister and how she’s doing _super_ well, despite having rushed her entrance into the world. “Total diva,” Kara jokes. Betty falls asleep first, to the rhythm of Lena’s heart, and Jack struggles to stay awake by inserting the pets into “The Name Game.”

_ “Punkie Punkie Bo Bunkie Bonana Fanna Fo Funkie—” _

_ He’s certainly funky, _ Lena thinks as Punkie farts along to Jack’s singing.

Jack eventually drops off too, and Lena and Kara stare at each other across the foot-long gap, with only their kids between them keeping them apart, exhausted, yet too wired with worry to sleep.

“If I had just agreed to the bodybuilder, or the marathon runner, none of this would be happening,” Lena whispers, a tear falling from her eye.

Kara lets go of Jack with one hand to reach over and gently caress Lena’s cheek. “I know you feel you need a reason for why this happened, baby. But there’s not always a reason for these things.”

“If I could just go back and do it over—”

“You are the  _ best _ mom.” Kara moves her hand up to softly stroke Lena’s hair. “Everything you do, you do with the kids’ best interests at heart. You would even buy Bella a drum set if she asks.”

_ “Ella _ will want a microphone, for sure.” Lena tries to summon her trademark smirk, but it just won’t come.

“We don’t know what might have happened if we had picked a different donor, Lena. Maybe you would have carried the baby full term. But maybe she would’ve come even earlier. There’s no way to know.” Kara wiggles herself and Jack as close as possible to Betty’s sleeping form, then cranes her neck to give her wife a kiss, Lena leaning forward to meet her halfway. “She’s here and she’s safe. She’s got a whole team of doctors and nurses taking expert care of her. And, she’s got us.”

Punkie punctuates this sentiment with a fart.

_ “All _ of us,” Kara agrees, and Lena can’t help but laugh.

“We’ll get through this together,” says Kara. “Bella couldn’t ask for a better family in her corner.”

“I couldn’t ask for a better wife than you.” Lena starts to cry again, and Kara scooches even closer, taking care not to bang Jack and Betty’s heads together.

“You’ll never have to. I’m always going to be here for you, my love.”

Lena tries to smile, but only cries harder, until Kara cranes her neck so far it rivals Plastic Man’s, and stops her crying with soft kisses.

The next morning they go to the hospital as a family, and Betty and Jack get to visit their sister for the first time. Kara holds Betty so she can see through the incubator.

Betty stares at the infant ensconced in the glass case, tubes and wires snaking from her to the machines keeping her warm, feeding her fluids, supplementing her oxygen, monitoring her heart rate, temperature and brain activity.

“She’s so little.”

Lena can’t help but laugh at the gentle simplicity of this statement, and she flashes Betty a loving smile. “So were _you_ once, my darling.”

“That little?”

“You were that little when you were inside me.” She reaches over and gently strokes Betty’s hair, then leans in and kisses the top of her head.

“How little was I when I came outside you Mummy?”

“You were six pounds, five ounces, a very healthy weight for a baby.”

“How little is Bella?”

“Ella is four pounds three ounces, so she’s got a way to go yet.”

Betty jumps with fright in Kara’s arms as a monitor starts beeping like crazy. A nurse quickly appears to check on the baby, reassuring the family it’s nothing serious.

Kara takes the kids home once visiting hours are over, but Lena stays at the NICU till very late, finding it unbelievably hard to leave that tiny mass of flesh and tubing that’s seized ahold of her heart. She sleeps later than she meant to, and comes down the stairs to find Kara holding Betty in her lap on the couch, Betty looking at their landline like it’s the sixth family dog.

“She’s in a box we can see in,” Betty gets out in between sobs. “And she’s so _little.”_

 _“My darling,”_ comes Lillian’s voice through the speakerphone. _“She’ll be all right. The doctors and nurses won’t let anything happen to Bella.”_

 _Ella,_ thinks Lena darkly. Why is their daughter turning to Dr. Evil for comfort when she and Kara are right here?

“But I want her to come home!” Betty sniffles, and Kara holds a handkerchief up to her nose so she can blow. “I want to _play_ with her.”

 _“Sweetheart,”_ Lillian coos. _“When someone’s locked away, and can’t come to your house to play, it will make it that much more special once they finally do. It won’t be too much longer, I promise you.”_

A chill runs down Lena’s spine, as she gets the awful feeling Lillian’s not referring only to their newborn. She catches her wife’s eye, and Kara gives her a worried frown.

“Pinky swear?” asks Betty.

 _“Pinky swear,”_ comes Lillian’s warm voice, and Lena reflects that as much as she resents her mom for never pinky swearing with _her,_ she’s grateful for the loving relationship Lillian’s forged with her children.

_You can’t have everything in life, and at least I have that._

“What was all that about with your mom, you think?” Kara asks as they settle down in bed that night, after another long day at the NICU fraught with worry. Punkie, Wally and Petunia, having migrated back between them, now give Lena extra attention, trying to comfort her for what they perceive as the loss of her baby.

Lena undoes her bun, both to sleep more comfortably and to give Minerva more surface area to lick. “I can’t, sweetheart, I can’t think of Lillian right now.” She lets out a long breath, snuggling closer into her big-spoon wife and closing her eyes. “I can hardly think of anything but the baby, to be honest.”

“It’s just . . . ” Kara gently tightens her hold around Lena, and nuzzles into her neck. “Do you think we ought to warn the prison authorities to tighten security somehow?”

“What could they do to her they haven’t already done?” Lena grumbles. “Kill her themselves?”

She opens her eyes suddenly, a small glint of hope in them. “Hey . . . ”

“Nope.” Kara shakes her head emphatically. “You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, babe. And the kids would be crushed.”

“Pfft. As if I would seriously consider that,” Lena says, with a weird laugh.

As if she would ever actually condone killing the grandmother of her children. Ha. No. She would never.

But it's a lovely thought.

*

The first time Lena gets to hold the baby, she’s cushioned in a mini-quilt covered with Winnie the Poohs and gently placed on Lena’s chest, trailing tubes, her tiny head and the ventilator fitting under Lena’s chin. Tears spring to her eyes as she finally feels this is real, that it isn’t some nightmare she won’t ever wake from. She supports the baby’s bottom with one hand and with the other gently runs a finger down her back, before settling it over her so she can feel secure and held. She smiles through her tears as Ella reaches out and presses her fingers against Lena’s skin.

“I love you, Ella, so, so very much,” she says softly. “I’ll never be able to make you understand exactly how much, but I promise to try.”

She never wants to let go, but finally she gingerly transfers the baby to Kara’s waiting arms.

“Hi there, little one. Couldn’t wait to get here, huh? Yeah, we were excited to meet you, too.” Kara coos to Ella, as Jack and Betty hang over the sides of the chair.

After a while Kara passes Ella to Jack, and finally Betty gets a turn, carefully taking her in her arms while sitting in Kara’s lap, Kara guiding her hold on the infant. Betty stares down into her lap where Ella kicks her feet into the air, and supports the baby’s head like Kara shows her.

“I love you, Jelly Belly. I asked Mommy and Mummy for you.”

Jack pulls his favorite Star Wars comic book out of his knapsack and starts to read Ella the exploits of Han, Luke and Leia and their faithful droids, adding soft sound effects when appropriate, like the beeping of Artoo.

Kara laughs. “Starting her early in the fandom, are we?”

Lena kisses her wife’s cheek. “Is it ever too early, though?”

Eliza comes to stay with them awhile, to help with the house and the kids. Lena spends most of her time in the NICU with Ella, helping to change and bathe her with a warm, wet cloth, reading to her, giving her kangaroo care—cuddling the baby to her bare chest for skin to skin contact—and bottle feeding her with milk she’s freshly pumped. Each day she encourages Ella to take her nipple into her mouth, delighting when the baby licks and nuzzles her areola. Although Ella has trouble latching on, or falls asleep soon after starting to suckle, Lena doesn’t give up.

Eventually Ella is able to be transferred from the incubator to a bassinet, that much closer to going home. Lena’s grateful, grateful Ella’s getting stronger, grateful the staff doesn’t kick her out as she tunelessly sings Ella Fitzgerald songs to her namesake.

_“Will I leave you, never?_  
_Could the ocean leave the shore?_  
_Will I worship you forever?_  
_Isn't heaven forevermore?”_

The baby stares up at her and . . . Lena’s sure that’s a smile.

She softly strokes Ella’s cheek. “You like the name Ella, don’t you? I knew you would.”

_“Do I love you, do I?_  
_Oh my dear it's so easy to see,_  
_Don't you know I do, don't I show you I do,_  
_Just as you love me.”_

During her third week at the NICU Ella finally starts suckling at Lena’s breast for longer periods of time, gradually allowing them to switch the ratio of tube and bottle feedings to breastfeedings. A little less than a week later, Ella’s laid in the car seat they’d bought for her, still hooked up to the monitors registering her oxygen saturation, breathing and heart rates. Lena cries when the nurses present her with a special certificate, as Ella’s passed the ‘Car Seat Challenge’ and is pronounced ready to go home.

With heartfelt thanks to the staff for everything they did not only to keep Ella alive, but to help her thrive, they finally leave the hospital carrying their little bundle of worry and joy. Ella wears her new Chewbacca onesie, which Jack had bought with his allowance, and Lena has never been so happy to see their ghastly green and sky blue van with the red lettering and flowers painted on the side, that instantly clues in all bystanders as to the crazy nature of this family.

Once home, Eliza opens the door to greet them. The pets are waiting as usual, expecting to welcome Lena and Kara and the kids, not expecting a surprise.

Lena kneels, the baby in her arms. Charlotte waddles over—stopping abruptly at the sight and smell of this fresh new thing—and grunts with joy.

Punkie lets out a string of farts at realizing who this little bundle is, Alfred leaps onto Lena’s shoulders for a bird’s-eye view, and Turtle zooms over on his skates, passing underneath Rover’s legs, as Comet and Wally and Petunia wag their tails so hard they almost float up to the ceiling. Minerva pads over, possibly searching for some fresh hair to nibble on, and nuzzles the baby’s beanie.

Lena bursts into tears, blaming it on her hormones as usual, but knowing it’s because after almost four weeks in the hospital that felt like four lifetimes, she can’t believe Ella’s finally home.

“It’s the first time Minnie and Harry Potter aren’t here to meet a Luthor-Danvers baby,” she tells Kara once they’re settled in bed, Ella in her crib, their bed free of dogs for once as they’re all in Ella’s room, protecting the new arrival.

“Minnie and Harry Potter _are_ here,” Kara says, holding Lena close. “They’re watching over us all for sure.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from the 1949 film _And Baby Makes Three_
> 
> This is the parrot video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_85Vvqes3o - except the kids and the guys watch it on tumblr on a continuous loop.
> 
> Thanks to littlebrother for the fun suggestion!
> 
> Happy Birthday, Dawn! Thank you for all your encouragement, for being a fantastic writing buddy, and for your editorial insight!
> 
> Thank you to nominare for greatly appreciated help with the pre-birth and NICU scenes!
> 
> Thank you all for reading! Next chapter will be mostly fun and fluff.


	3. Ella Ella Bo Bella

Crickets and cicadas sing softly through the open window. Kara hums along as she pads into the bedroom, having changed and soothed the baby and laid her back inside her crib. _(“Such a good guard dog, Punkie, yes you are! And you too, Wally and Petunia!” Arf!)_

She curls up behind Lena, and puts her arm around her.

“Mmm,” Lena breathes, snuggling into Kara, allowing herself to believe the crying and the barking and even now the cuddling are all part of a wonderful dream where she stays in bed and rests while her wonderful wife takes care of everything.

“Bella Dawson, protagonist of _Bella and the Bulldogs_ on Nickelodeon back in the day.” Kara kisses the back of Lena’s head. “Bella Igla, Israeli women’s chess champion.”

Lena opens her eyes, as this dream is a bit weirder than usual. She looks to the far end of the room, as if searching for answers there, but that’s where Turtle’s sleeping, and he definitely doesn’t have any answers.

Kara nuzzles her nose into Lena’s neck. “Bela Lugosi, otherwise known as Dracula.”

Lena smirks upon realizing what her wife’s up to, but turns around in Kara’s arms so Kara can _see_ the smirk. “Would we really prefer a vampire to a jazz singer, though?”

“I’m deconditioning you from thoughts of Bella Swan.” Kara giggles. “Bellatrix Lestrange, who needs no introduction.”

Lena lets out a throaty laugh. “I don’t think a Harry Potter villain is quite an appropriate role model for our child either, but I get it, sweetheart.”

Kara presses closer into her, kissing and smiling, smiling and kissing. “I’m really fine with calling her Ella, babe. It’s just, it means a lot to the children for some reason.”

Lena pulls Kara in for another kiss, and one more, before finally acquiescing. “Far be it from me to resist the children’s dubbing ceremonies. Wally and Petunia are proof of _that.”_

Kara’s eyes widen at a memory, and suddenly fill with tears. “You’ve always been a super sport, you know that?”

“Hey, hey. None of that, love.” Lena cups Kara’s face, gently thumbing away the tears. “It’s not hard to be a good sport when you’re in love with your family.” She smiles, and kisses her wife again, resolving in the morning to tell the kids they can call their new sister anything they want.

Except for Superstupid.

Lena had almost forgotten how tiring having a newborn in the house would be. Eliza’s been helping them, and Lena’s super grateful to her mother-in-law, the best mother-in-law in all the multiverse, but it still feels like all the ordered parts of their lives that existed before the baby’s arrival are from some distant dream Lena can hardly recall. And they’ve missed visiting Lillian for six weeks now.

Well. Lena hasn’t missed visiting Lillian at all. But she knows Jack and Betty have, and not just because they keep asking about her.

Jack parades through the living room wearing his ‘toy’ handcuffs, making several passes of the sofa where Lena sits working, Kara and Eliza having taken Betty and Bella to the park.

“I get it, sweetheart,” Lena says after glancing up from her laptop. “We’ll go this weekend. Take those off, please.”

“I can’t. I lost the key.”

“Hmm, guess you won’t be able to ride your bike anymore, will you? I’ll have to sell it on ebay.”

She bites back a smile as Jack pulls the handcuffs apart, then snaps each one open using his thumbs.

He’ll get a new, working pair from Alex or Maggie in a day or two, Lena’s sure. She’d never wanted her kids to play with guns, or any toys of a violent nature, but she didn’t really have a leg to stand on when Jack was a toddler and Kara came home with the Super Soaker Space Pack with Astronaut Back Pack, and drenched them all in the backyard.

Saturday after sleeping in and eating a late breakfast, they kiss Kara goodbye then pile into the van. The baby fits into the new car seat between Jack and Betty, who gaze adoringly at her the entire trip.

Once at Lillian’s Home Sweet Home, the kids latch onto their grandmother as usual, although Lena is pleased to see her daughter’s squeezes are quite a bit softer today, having applied her mum’s lessons on being gentle with the baby to her grandmother.

Lena's pleased her daughter is a fast learner. Although somewhat disappointed at being deprived of seeing Lillian suffer.

“Sorry we haven’t come in so long,” Lena lies as she settles with Bella onto the seat across from Lillian. Jack picks up Betty and takes the other chair.

“It’s been a bit hectic with the baby coming so early, you understand.”

Lillian gives her daughter a slight smile, then gazes at the latest Luthor-Danvers with instant love and adoration. The baby gurgles, and smiles at her.

“She likes me.”

Lena scowls. “She likes her own poo. She’s hardly a discerning judge of character at the moment.”

Lillian actually laughs at that. “May I touch her? Hold her hand at least?”

Lena thinks back to how she never let her mom touch Jack and Betty when they were infants, how the kids reached out to her on their own. “Her immune system is delicate.”

“I used sanitizer.”

Aware of the kids watching her, Lena bites her lip, then stands and slightly leans over the table, bringing the baby closer to Lillian, and Lillian’s chains.

Lillian gently takes hold of Bella’s hand with her long index finger and thumb, and coos to her. Bella smiles again and kicks her feet in the air.

“Curious choice of a onesie.”

Lena looks down at the black and white horizontally-striped onesie Bella’s sporting. “A gift from the kids’ aunts. They’re in law enforcement, you know.”

“Amusing,” says Lillian, not sounding amused at all.

An awkward silence follows, until Betty and Jack start to regale Lillian with tales of their new baby sister. Lena takes advantage of the momentum shift and subtly pulls her precious infant away, and moves to sit with her once more.

“Five minutes, Mrs. Luthor-Danvers,” calls the guard eventually.

“I do worry about you, you know,” says Lillian softly, out of the blue, speaking to Lena although she’s still gazing at the baby. “I do love you—not just the children.”

Lena bites back a sob that comes from out of nowhere, or more truthfully, from somewhere long ago. _Will these pregnancy hormones never leave me alone?_

“Why doesn’t Mommy come to visit you, Granma?” asks Betty suddenly. “Don’t you like her?”

Lena turns her head to her little one in alarm, then looks over warily at Lillian, to see her smiling at Betty.

“She’s always welcome to visit me dear, if she would like.”

Lena can’t help the inelegant snort that escapes her nostrils. _Sure, Mom, pass the buck onto your hated alien daughter-in-law, why don’t you?_

But seeing Betty beaming with joy, and Jack nodding his head approvingly, Lena can’t help but surrender, willing to give up yet another little piece of her resentment toward her mother, for her children’s sake. Because their happiness is everything.

_Couldn’t I just paint L-Corp black and purple, though?_

Once they get home, Kara takes the baby and sings softly to her, the kids joining in, having inherited her angelic voice. Eliza chimes in as well, and by the sounds of it Lena swears once again that Eliza really _is_ related to Kara, and that they’ve been lying to everyone all along.

Lena climbs the stairs, thinking she’s about to take her first nap alone in more than nine years, with the animals foregoing her company to bask in Eliza’s and the baby’s. But no—here come Charlotte and Minerva trailing after her, and she can’t help but smile at her faithful companions. She falls asleep listening to Minerva licking the hair that’s fallen over her ear, Charlotte’s gentle grunting, and the sounds of Turtle swanning about the hardwood floor on his skates downstairs.

Dinner, another Pixar movie, and several feedings and changings later, and Lena’s nursing the baby once more, as Bella has a healthy appetite.

Betty waddles into her parents’ bedroom and makes the short flight onto the bed. Settling down with a pillow, she watches with wide eyes as the baby suckles at Lena’s breast.

“She’s still so little.”

Lena hums, her eyes locked on Bella, fascinated with those big blue eyes set in that teeny tiny face. “She’ll be that little awhile yet, love, it will take time and many feedings before she gets up to weight.”

“Oh.”

Betty keeps her gaze on Bella a long while, then finally looks up at Lena, seeming to consider something. She looks down at the comforter and starts to pick at an imaginary loose thread. “Mummy?”

“Yes, darling?” says Lena, gazing at her younger daughter contentedly slurping away.

Betty doesn’t say anything for a while, seemingly absorbed in the bedspread she’s fingering, but finally pipes up again. “Did . . . did you love me more when I was little?”

Lena’s eyes widen and she stares at her older daughter. She’d thought she and Kara were doing a good job of making sure Betty felt just as loved and treasured as before the baby was born.

Apparently not good enough.

Her eyes fill with tears. _“Sweetheart._ I love you more and more each _day.”_

Betty looks up into Lena’s eyes and beams. “I love _you,_ Mummy.”

Lena smiles through her tears and leans closer toward her feet, taking care not to jostle the little bundle attached to her breast.

Betty reaches up to give Lena a kiss, then another, then angles her neck to plant one—gently—on her little sister.

“Could you hand me the remote to my iPod please, darling?”

Betty blasts off to the other side of the bed and grabs the remote from the nightstand, then flies it over to Lena.

“Thank you, baby.”

Lena finds the song she wants, hits play, and starts singing along to it, the song she sang to Bella in the hospital, but that applies just as much to Betty.

_“Do I love you, do I?_  
_Doesn't one and one make two?_  
_Do I love you, do I?_  
_Does July need a sky of blue?”_

Betty’s eyes light up, and she snuggles into Lena’s side and joins in. They sing to each other, looking into each other’s eyes, Betty not caring at all that Lena’s squawky singing sounds like they’re sitting on their would-be pet pigeon, crushing it underneath the mattress.

_“Do I love you, do I?_  
_Oh my dear it's so easy to see._  
_Don't you know I do, don't I show you I do,_  
_Just as you love me.”_

*

“I need to go away with Betty.”

“Running away, eh?” Kara teases, slipping into bed, maneuvering around Punkie who’s rejoined them, probably having missed them too much. Or maybe he and Wally and Petunia are trading off guard shifts.

“Eliza and I not helping you enough?”

Lena pushes her ass into Kara’s crotch, and sighs when Kara’s arms encircle her. “I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with her, darling, but she needs more attention from _me._ Without the baby around.”

“You could pump. I can bottle feed her for the weekend.”

“I just got her doing well with breastfeeding, though. I’d hate for her to get too used to the bottle and then reject my boobs when I get back.”

Kara lets out a laugh and nuzzles Lena’s neck. “Babe. She’d have to be a moron to reject your marvelous boobs.”

Lena laughs, mostly at the tickling sensation upon her neck. “Seriously, darling.”

Kara ponders their situation awhile. “I saw something called a ‘Supplemental Nursing System’ in one of your mommy and baby catalogues. You pump and it attaches to _my_ boob. We can make sure Bella takes to it before you go."

“Yes, we’ll make sure _Ella_ takes to it,” Lena says, laughing when Kara tickles her belly, shrieking when Kara doesn’t stop. “I give up! Bella! _Bella!”_

*

To test the Supplemental Nursing System, Lena pumps, then leaves Kara alone with Bella and her milk, and the tubing that runs from the container and latches onto Kara’s nipple.

Lena leans against the wall right outside the bedroom, worrying their baby won’t take Kara’s breast, and will instead seek out Lena’s familiar smell that she associates with food. Lena lets out a sigh of relief a few moments later when Kara calls out, “Whoa, does that feel weird!”

Lena giggles and enters the room, enjoying the sight of their baby pressed to Kara, sucking on her nipple and the attached tubing.

“But nice!” Kara giggles as well. “I could get used to this.”

“Good to know I’m so replaceable,” Lena teases. “Apparently any old boob will do.”

“Don’t you worry.” Kara grins and gives her a sly wink. “Soon you’ll be the strict boob who withholds sweets, and I’ll be the fun boob.”

“Obviously. We’re just two big boobs.”

“Two boobs in love.”

“We’ll always be two boobs in love, darling.”

“Mmm. Kiss me, you great big boob.”

*

Lena pulls Betty’s mini suitcase—the one that matches hers and Kara’s and Jack’s—from the top shelf of Betty’s closet. She’s in the middle of packing it, after finishing her own, when Betty waddles into the room, Comet faithfully tagging along behind her.

Betty stares at the socks and underwear, dresses and tees and shorts piled high in the suitcase. “Are we taking a trip Mummy?”

“We are.” Lena beams at her daughter and tosses a balled up pair of socks at her. “We’re going to New York City for the weekend.”

Betty giggles as the socks bounce off her knee. She picks them up and flies them back over to Lena, and drops them into the suitcase.

“All of us? And Bella?”

“No, sweetheart. Just me and my big girl.” Lena gathers up the plush black and brown cat with stuffing coming out of its ears, along with the plush mouse Betty had Scotch-taped to the cat’s paws. “And of course Barry Allen Potter and Minnie the Pooh are coming along as well.”

Betty excitedly helps Lena pack—Comet stepping into the suitcase, perhaps angling for an invite as well—and the rest of the week is spent planning their itinerary. Jack and Kara see them off at the airport, Bella snuggled inside a baby carrier against Kara’s chest, and after Lena and Betty get settled in First Class the friendly flight attendant takes them for a visit inside the cockpit.

“My mommy can fly,” Betty tells the pilot. “And so can—”

“My wife is getting her pilot’s license,” Lena cuts in, crouching and gently rubbing Betty’s arm.

“Oh?” The pilot leans forward with interest. “What type of certificate? Sport? Recreational?”

Lena scrunches up her nose in apparent confusion. “Her plane has a blue and red body.”

The pilot laughs, charmed by what he believes is the naive answer of a clueless spouse, and proceeds to show Betty how to work the controls.

Upon arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Lena has their luggage sent straight to their hotel. They take a cab to West 57th Street, and as soon as Lena sets Betty’s little feet onto the sidewalk she’s off like a shot, scurrying after a horde of unsuspecting pigeons, intent on taking one home, unaware that without engaging her super-speed she doesn’t stand a chance.

Lena catches up with her little pipsqueak as she’s staring forlornly up at the escaping birds, probably wondering if she should disobey Lena just this once (hahahahaha) and fly off after them.

Taking her hand, Lena leads Betty down the sidewalk to their destination. She points up at a red canopy above the restaurant door, with RUSSIAN TEA ROOM written in fancy letters on the side. The top-hatted doorman holds the gilded entrance open for them, but Lena passes him by with a wink, to take her daughter through the fun revolving doors instead, guiding her through, her hand on her shoulder. They sweep through the foyer, Betty gaping at a display case full of Fabergé eggs and matryoshka dolls.

“Mummy! The mama doll has lots and lots of baby dolls!”

“Yes, she does!” Lena agrees, then immediately diverts her daughter’s attention to the Russian military chess set.

The hostess smiles down at Betty and brings them to their reserved curved booth at the far wall of the restaurant, pulling the table out for them so they can slide inside and settle into the comfy red vinyl seats. Along with the green walls, soft lighting and gilded moldings, the decor has a feel of Christmas about it. Betty oohs as she looks all around at the ornate furnishings, the statues and gold samovars and Russian folk paintings, then down at the fancy silverware, while Lena arranges the rest of their party on the tabletop.

Lena hopes if they return in a few years' time her daughter will be able to clock the place as terribly gaudy and ostentatious, but for now she’s thrilled for Betty to be transported to a magical fairyland. Albeit one furnished by Lillian’s tacky Russian twin.

Presently a waiter wearing a fancy dinner jacket with gold buttons and a tail approaches them, not batting an eye at the unusual extra table settings.

“Zdrastvuite, Vladimir,” says Lena in greeting. “How are your wife and children?”

“Very good, Mrs. Luthor-Danvers,” says the waiter in a heavy Russian accent. “This is your little one, yes?”

“Actually, this is my _big_ girl, Betty,” says Lena, and Betty giggles as Vladimir bows to her. “We’ll start with a nice tea for everyone Vladimir, as well as the traditional cheesecake.”

“Very good. Does the young lady know what she would like?”

Betty beams at Vladimir, then looks to Lena. Lena places a warm hand over her daughter’s. “The young lady will have the Raspberry Zinger, and I’ll have the Rooibos Chai please, Vladimir.”

“Excellent choices.”

Lena now indicates the stuffed cat, who apparently left some of his stuffing on the plane, on Betty’s left. “Mr. Potter would like the Ginger Tea. And Miss Pooh here—”

Vladimir bows to the stuffed mouse, now free of Scotch tape, sitting at Betty’s right.

“—will have the Lotus Green.”

“Very good.” The waiter winks at Lena, smiles at Betty, then gives Barry Allen Potter and Minnie the Pooh each another bow before leaving them.

Betty waves at Vladimir’s retreating form, then turns to Lena. “Mummy?”

“Yes, honey bun?”

Betty thinks a moment as she scrunches up her table napkin. “Why can’t Granma leave the big house?”

Lena blinks her eyes, unable to even snicker at her daughter’s innocent usage of that term, knowing there’s no easy answer to that question. She thinks back to how she explained Lillian’s situation to Jack when he asked her a few years ago. “Grandma . . . is in a time out, of sorts.”

Betty’s little eyes widen. “Time out?” she squeaks. “She must of been _real_ bad.”

“Must _have,_ baby.” Lena nods. “And yes, Grandma’s been a _very_ bad girl.”

“She doesn’t ever get to play?”

“Grandma _does_ get playtime,” Lena reassures her. “And she has plenty of friends in the house whom she—” Lena grimaces at the mental image she’s getting _“—plays_ with.”

Betty thinks about this for a minute, then without warning bursts into tears. “I want Granma to come play at _our_ house.”

A searing pain stabs Lena’s heart. She blinks back her own tears, slides even closer in the booth and gathers her little girl in her arms, setting her on her lap.

“Oh, love,” she whispers. “I would do _anything_ to fix anything that’s hurting you. But this is something I can’t fix. I’m so sorry.”

She thinks of that night, so long ago, when she and Kara debated the pros and cons of introducing little Jack to his grandmother, his grandmother who would never, ever get to leave prison, and wonders, not for the first time, whether they made the right decision.

“She loves you, sweetheart, and that’s what’s important, yeah? Some kids don’t even get to have one grandmother, let alone two.”

“Uh huh,” Betty agrees, her ragged sobs betraying her true feelings on the subject.

After Lena’s hugged Betty’s tears away, and dried off all evidence of them, she settles her daughter back onto the red vinyl seat, and Vladimir takes this opportunity to bring them their tea. He sets the cups and saucers in front of the four guests. Lena spoons some cherries into the cups for sweetening, then Vladimir pours the tea from each antique porcelain pot.

He now places a slice of vanilla cheesecake with white chocolate shavings, raspberry sauce and berries in front of each guest, and Lena is pleased to see each serving is half a regular portion. She’d debated whether to order the regular Children’s Tea menu, with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cucumber cream cheese sandwiches, but figured as a treat to end all treats, desert was the way to go, and Betty’s mile-wide smile confirms this.

Vladimir bows once more and leaves them, but not before returning Betty’s wave, and they commence with the tea party to end all tea parties. Mr. Potter and Miss Pooh effuse over the whole affair, proclaiming in high-pitched, squeaky voices they’ve never been to its equal, Lena not caring at all that patrons at the booths and tables nearby stare at her like she’s gone mad. One raise of her eyebrow, and everyone minds their own business again.

Soon Mr. Potter and Miss Pooh declare themselves to be quite stuffed, literally and figuratively, and invite Betty and Lena to ‘finish’ their cheesecake for them. After which the girls still have room and share a rich and creamy chocolate mousse cake with a hazelnut center. Lena moans with delight and insists that Mr. Potter and Miss Pooh _must_ try it, regardless of their level of stuffedness. Betty giggles and tilts each plush animal to the plate in order to partake.

Finally everyone is truly stuffed and content, and Lena pays the check, making sure to add a sizable contribution to Vladimir’s children’s college fund. Taking a roll of Scotch tape out of her purse, she proceeds to secure Miss Pooh back inside Mr. Potter’s paws, then hands the animals to Betty. Lena scooches her way to her end of the curved booth and slides out. She takes the few steps to Betty’s side, reaches out and picks her up, then sets her on the floor, taking her free hand in hers.

After they say goodbye to Vladimir, the hostess brings them up in the elevator to the dining room on the second floor, to see the fifteen-foot rotating crystal bear aquarium with goldfish swimming inside. Luckily Betty asks Lena for a goldfish, and not a pet bear. Lena distracts her by pointing out the colorful glowing eggs hanging like Christmas lights from the branches of a golden tree at the other end of the room.

Lena had been hoping afterward to take her daughter next door to Carnegie Hall, or to the theater, but acquiesces to Betty’s wish to visit the famous FAO Schwartz toy store instead, so Lena can buy her yet another new brother or sister. Betty selects a stuffed elephant Lena will have to buy a plane seat for, then they make their way to Central Park for ice cream, and feeding the ducks at the pond.

“No, love. Ducks don’t like ice cream.”

*

They’re only an hour into a fun ‘sleepover’ in their hotel suite when Betty conks out, exhausted, and Lena places a call home.

 _“Hey!"_ comes Kara’s voice over the line. _“How are you guys doing? We miss you!”_

“Sorry I didn’t call earlier, sweetheart,” Lena whispers, tucking Betty in along with Mr. Potter, Miss Pooh, and Ella the Elephant _(not_ a replacement for her preferred baby moniker, Lena had insisted, showing Betty the so-named children’s books online, and immediately placing an order).

“We miss you guys, too. Is Jack there?”

 _“He_ is. _He’s with Charlie and the pets in the backyard, racing Turtle against the radio-controlled car. Wait a sec and I’ll get him.”_

“No—” Lena’s eyes widen with surprise “—don’t disturb them. It’s just . . . what . . . how—”

_“Jack told me what Charlie said at the supermarket. Let’s just say Supergirl felt the need to pay Mrs. Hagglebottom a social call.”_

“She didn’t.”

_“She did."_

Lena hears Kara’s smirk across three time zones, and indulges in one of her own.

_“Is Betty asleep?”_

“She is.”

_“What are you wearing?”_

Lena chokes on a laugh. “Seriously?"

_“Mmm."_

Lena looks down at her shirt. “An _‘I Love New York and Its Pigeons’_ tee. Really. We bought regular shirts at a tourist trap and went and had them custom stencilled. What are _you_ wearing, hmm?”

_“An MIT hoodie that smells like you. But I can easily take it off . . . as well as everything else.”_

“Mmm. I heartily approve of that item on the itinerary.”

Glancing back to make sure Betty’s still asleep, Lena hurries to the sofa in the outer room of the suite, to lie down and slip her hand down her sleeping shorts.

*

After a _super_ relaxing night, and another enjoyable day on the town, Lena and Betty make their flight back, Betty keeping the family’s flying exploits to herself this time when they’re shown the cockpit. They nap on the flight, and Lena smiles to see Kara and Jack waiting for them as they exit the gate, Bella tucked into the baby carrier, awake and babbling, staring at the newcomers with bright blue eyes that seem to recognize them.

“How’s my big girl?” asks Kara, as Betty waits to jump on her until she’s passed the baby to Lena.

Lena laughs as Betty leaps into Kara’s arms, clutching her cat/mouse combo and her elephant.

Jack hugs Lena around her waist, squeezing gently. “How’s my big boy?” she asks as he grins up at her. “And how’s my little girl?” she says, smiling down at the baby. Bella looks up at her, gurgling, reaching out with tiny fingers.

“And who’s this?” asks Kara, the elephant’s trunk smushed into her cheek.

“Ella!”

“Ella?” Kara finds Lena’s eyes and they exchange smiles. “Didn’t realize we had twins.”

Betty bounces in Kara’s arms. “Jelly Belly and Smelly Elly!”

“Because Punkie needs a farting buddy,” says Lena, grinning when Betty and Jack dissolve into giggles.

Soon they’re all buckled into the Mystery Machine, eventually passing by the Hagglebottoms’ house, honking the horn to acknowledge Charlie waving at them from up in the branches of the tree in his front yard.

They’re home, they’re parked, and hand-in-hand they approach their house, the black house with purple shutters and the purple door. Greeted by the most fantastic mother-in-law, and by grunting and barking, barking that sounds like terribly loud but beautiful music, accompanied by the tweeting of that bird that lives in their oak tree—thankfully not in their house—and claws pawing at the door.

Welcoming them home.

*

Darkness falls soon, and so do Bella’s cries in the middle of the night. Lena doesn’t even need Wally and Petunia dashing into the bedroom to alert her.

She nurses Bella, burps her, then gently rocks her back to sleep, humming more Ella Fitzgerald tunes. Kissing Bella softly, she gingerly lays her back inside her crib. She can’t help but stand there a few minutes more, staring at her perfect daughter, with her perfect guard dogs. Thankful for them all, thankful for her wonderful family, for her beautiful life that she somehow, some way magically stumbled into.

She pads back into the master bedroom, grinning at the cuddle pile stretching in front of her. The kids and their dogs have found their way into the bed, and now Lena wiggles her way through legs and arms, tails and paws, maneuvering to get close to her wonderful wife.

Still her favorite person.

One of her four favorite people.

Kara sighs contentedly as Lena snuggles into her, fitting her arm about her waist. “I had such a weird dream just now, before the kids jumped into bed and woke me.”

Lena quirks her eyebrow as she settles onto the pillow, feeling Minerva fit about her head like a tailor-made wig. “A weirder dream than the vast majority of your dreams?”

Kara takes hold of Lena’s hand, squeezing it gently. “Everything in our lives was the same, except . . . we only had three pets.”

Lena lets out a snort of laughter. “That sounds rather wonderful.”

She imagines it, thinking which three pets she couldn’t live without. _Charlotte, definitely. And Minerva’s been such a comfort to me. Punkie . . . yeah, he can go. I mean, I love him, but good God, the constant farting—_

Kara giggles. “But we had _nine_ kids.”

Lena gasps, then pales, imagining such a scenario, as Minerva licks her hair and Punkie lets out another fart.

“Our life right now is wonderful.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> >^..^<  
> =^.^=


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